I don’t want to disparage real estate agents too much, since I am one. But the traditional method of selling your home by listing with a real estate agent can often be a huge hassle.
- First, it can be hard to find an agent that you trust — one who will actually make an effort to sell your house, rather than just sticking it on the MLS and then sitting around doing nothing, while hoping for a fat commission check! While there are definitely some agents that are worth every penny, it seems that they are in the minority. A fairly large percentage of agents don’t really do anything besides list your property on the MLS, and can’t be bothered to return phone calls.
- You will normally sign a contract that locks you in with the agent long term. Then if they don’t perform, you’re stuck.
- Next, in order to list your home for sale, it generally has to be in good shape. That means you will need to fix every little thing, and clean up the property, so it shows well.
- Of course you get to sign piles of paperwork.
- Then, you have to deal with random people walking through your house at all hours of the day, judging you and everything in your house. And potentially eyeing your possessions.
- For showings, your agent will want you to leave, so you will constantly be forced out of your home, and have to figure out somewhere to “hang out” and wait until you can go back to your own home. That’s even more obnoxious if you have children or pets.
- If you don’t get an offer soon, you will generally have to cut your price. Price reductions can be the most expensive “closing cost” that you might not think about up front.
- Then if you ever do get an offer, the buyer will often offer less than your asking price, AND ask you to pay “seller concessions”. Seller concessions refers to money that the buyer wants you to pay toward their loan costs and closing costs. So in addition to your own closing costs, you might get stuck paying another 3% of the sale price toward the buyer’s costs!
- If you go under contract, you’ll have to deal with a home inspector nit-picking everything in your home, and making a long list of 100+ things for you to fix.
- You’ll have to constantly shuffle paperwork back and forth, from the buyer… to the agent… the the other agent… to you… and back.
- You will have a termite inspector coming through, and guess what, there are almost always termites on a property. This is Arizona!
- Buyers often have unreasonable expectations about how many things you should fix. If you can’t come to an agreement, the deal will fall apart.
- Many times the buyer will tie up your property for weeks and then back out of the deal.
- Or the buyer may not want to back out, but at the last minute their bank loan falls through. Then you are back at square one.
- Or the appraisal comes in lower than the contract price, and you have to either accept a lower purchase price, or cancel the deal and start over.
This whole process is just not that fun! It can all add a lot of stress, and add months to the selling process. And after paying the hefty agent fees, closing costs, seller concessions, listing price reductions, offer price below asking, and repair costs, you may not end up with anywhere near as much money going into your pocket as you had planned for.
We understand all of these issues because we are licensed agents. But we don’t think you should to have to jump through all those hoops. If you prefer a fast sale for cash, with NONE of the above issues, please call Baritone Home Buyers at (480) 447-3577 to request an offer, or request a cash offer here. You can read more about our home buying process here.